Part 6 (2/2)
”And the outfit?”
”Let me see. Harness is practically new; buggy first-cla.s.s. I'll make it an even seven hundred for the whole business; outfit and team.”
There was a brief silence. As a rule, a man drawing the salary of the Geological Survey does not spend seven hundred dollars lightly. He bridles his impulses to own fine driving-horses until at least he has tried them.
And this sum, just at that time, meant something of a drain on Tisdale's bank account. He knew if he bought the Weatherbee tract and reclaimed it, he must hedge on his personal expenses for a year or two; he had even talked with Banks a little about a loan to open the project and keep it moving until the next season's clean-up, when the Aurora should make good.
He stirred, with a quick upward lift of his head, and looked once more in the direction of the station.
The girl rose and began to walk the platform.
Tisdale swung back and met the trader's calculating gaze. ”Where is your bank?” he asked.
The business was quickly transacted and, when Lighter and his customer stepped out of the bank, Harry was there, driving the bays slowly up and down the street. In the moment they waited for him to draw up, the trader looked Tisdale over again. ”Your easiest way to get this team over to the Sound is to drive through Snoqualmie Pa.s.s, the way you came.”
”But,” said Tisdale, knitting his brows, ”I told you I wanted this team to drive to the Wenatchee valley.”
”You can't drive on through the Cascades from there and, if you try to s.h.i.+p these colts aboard a Great Northern train, you'll have trouble.”
”I shall probably leave them to winter in the valley. Unless”--Tisdale paused, smiling at the afterthought--”I decide to sell them to young Morganstein when I get back to Seattle.”
Lighter laughed dryly. ”I thought so. I sized you up all right at the start. I says to myself: 'He don't look like a feller to run a bluff,' and I says: 'Young Morganstein ain't the sort to pick up any second-hand outfit,' but I thought all along you was his man.”
”I see.” The humor played softly in Tisdale's face. ”I see. But you thought wrong.”
Lighter's lids narrowed again skeptically. ”Those letters you showed to identify yourself cinched it. Why, one was signed by his brother-in-law, Miles Feversham, and your draft was on the Seattle National where the Morgansteins bank. But it's all right; I got my price.” He nudged Tisdale slyly and, laughing again, moved to the heads of the team. ”Now, sir, watch your chance; they're chain lightning the minute you touch the seat.”
Tisdale was ready. At last he felt the tug of the lines in his grasp, the hot wind stung his face, and he was speeding back in the direction of the station. The girl came to the edge of the platform as he approached, and while the solitary man from the freight office caught the first opportunity to store the baggage under the seat, and the second to lift in the basket of samples from Bailey's orchard, she tied her veil more snugly under her chin and stood measuring the team with the sparkles breaking in her eyes. Then she gathered her skirts in one hand and laid the other lightly on the seat.
”Don't try to help me,” she said breathlessly. ”Just hold them.” And the next instant she was up beside him, and her laugh fluted in exhilaration as they whirled away.
Kitt.i.tas fell far behind. They were racing directly across the seven miles of level towards a pa.s.s in a lofty range that marked the road to Wenatchee. Far to the left lines of poplars showed where the irrigating ca.n.a.ls below Ellensburg watered the plain, and on the right the dunes and bluffs of the unseen Columbia broke the horizon. But the girl was watching Tisdale's management of the horses. ”What beauties!” she exclaimed. ”And Nip and Tuck!” Her lips rippled merriment. ”How well named. Wait, be-- care--ful--they are going to take that ho-le. Oh, would you mind giving those reins to me?”
”I wish I could.” He shook his head, while the amus.e.m.e.nt played gently at the corners of his mouth. ”I know all about a team of huskies, and it doesn't make much difference what I have under a saddle, but these kittens in harness are rather out of my line.”
”Then trust yourself to me; please do. I used to drive just such a pair.”
”Oh, but your hands couldn't stand this, and those gloves would be ribbons in half an hour.”
”They are heavier than they look; besides, there are the shops at Wenatchee!” As if this settled the matter she said: ”But we must change places. Now.” She slipped into his seat as he rose, and took the reins dexterously, with a tightening grip, in her hands. ”Whoa, whoa, Nip!” Her voice deepened a little. ”Steady, Tuck, steady! That's right; be a man.”
There was another silent interval while he watched her handling of the team, then, ”I did not know there could be a pair in all the world so like Pedro and Don Jose,” she said, and the exhilaration softened in her face.
”They were my ponies given me the birthday I was seventeen. A long time ago--” she sighed and flashed him a side-glance, shaking her head--”but I shall never forget. We lived in San Francisco, and my father and I tried them that morning in Golden Gate park. The roads were simply perfect, and the sea beach at low tide was like a hardwood floor. After that we drove for the week-end to Monterey, then through the redwoods to Santa Cruz and everywhere.” She paused reminiscently. ”Those California hotels are fine.
They pride themselves on their orchestras, and wherever we went, we found friends to enjoy the dancing evenings after table d'hote. That was in the winter, but it was more delightful in the spring. We drove far south then, through Menlo Park and Palo Alto, where the great meadows were vivid with alfalfa, and fields on fields were yellow with poppies or blue with lupine; on and on into the peach and almond country. I can see those blossoming orchards now; the air was flooded with perfume.”
Her glance moved from the horses out over the sage-covered levels, and the contrast must have dropped like a curtain on her picture, for the light in her face died. Tisdale's look followed the road up from the plain and rested on the higher country; his eyes gathered their far-seeing gaze. He had been suddenly reminded of Weatherbee. It was in those California orchards he had spent his early life. He had known that scent of the blossoming almond; those fields of poppies and lupine had been his playground when he was a child. It was at the university at Palo Alto that he had taken his engineering course; and it was at one of those gay hotels, on a holiday and through some fellow student, he had met the woman who had spoiled his life.
The moment pa.s.sed. One of the horses broke, and instantly the driver was alert. And while she alternately admonished and upbraided, with a firm manipulation of the reins, the humor began to play again in Tisdale's face. They were approaching the point where the road met the highway from Ellensburg, and in the irrigated sections that began to divide the unreclaimed land, harvesters were reaping and binding; from a farther field came the noise of a thres.h.i.+ng machine; presently, as the bays turned into the thoroughfare, the way was blocked by a great flock of sheep.
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